Maple Leafs search for identity after Mike Babcock firing
Mike Babcock stood in front of a throng of assembled media at T-Mobile Arena on Monday and defiantly said “I’ve always bet on Mike Babcock, and I’ll continue to bet on him.”
Well, that bet went bust Wednesday. The embattled Toronto Maple Leafs coach was fired after a 9-10-4 start to his fifth season with the marquee franchise.
The dismissal, which came after a 0-5-1 stretch, certainly wasn’t a surprise. But it left plenty of questions as to how one of the most talented rosters in the NHL — and new coach Sheldon Keefe — will proceed.
“We just want different results,” captain John Tavares said Tuesday after a 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights, the final game of Babcock’s tenure. “We want to win. It’s obviously frustrating when you’re not getting them. We’ve talked about resolve and resiliency and trying to stay with it. That’s all we can do. We got to continue to move forward and find ways to get better and obviously get the job done when we have opportunities like this.”
The Maple Leafs now will have to learn how to win without the coach that led them to the playoffs each of the past three seasons. Keefe, previously the coach of the team’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, has his work cut out for him.
The Maple Leafs, despite boasting highly paid centers Tavares and Auston Matthews and right wings Mitch Marner and William Nylander, ranked 13th in goals per game (3.13) and 18th on the power play (17.6 percent) when Babcock was fired. That wasn’t enough to make up for a leaky defense that was eighth worst in goals against per game (3.43) and fifth worst on the penalty kill (73.1 percent).
There’s hope Keefe can right the ship by leaning into the speed and skill of Matthews, Marner and Nylander. Let them off the leash. That certainly would appear to be the mandate from 33-year-old general manager Kyle Dubas, whose roster building never matched the 56-year-old Babcock’s grinding style.
There’s hope there will be more harmony with the 39-year-old Keefe. Dubas hired Keefe to be his coach when he was the general manager of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Dubas hired Keefe again to coach the Marlies when he was the Maple Leafs’ assistant GM.
The early returns are good. The Maple Leafs won Keefe’s first game 3-1 in Arizona on Thursday.
“You build and move forward, and that’s how you become a really good team, is when you go through that adversity,” right wing Zach Hyman said Tuesday. “It’s better to go through it right now than it is later in the season and in the playoffs. We’re a determined group. We’re a confident group. And we’re going to bounce back.”
Hot seat watch
Babcock’s firing, the first of the season, begs the question: Who’s next?
Candidates include the Nashville Predators’ Peter Laviolette, the Calgary Flames’ Bill Peters and the New Jersey Devils’ John Hynes. Laviolette’s and Peters’ squads have regressed after winning division titles.
Hynes’ team added a lot of pieces in the offseason (No. 1 overall pick Jack Hughes, right wings Nikita Gusev and Wayne Simmonds and defenseman PK Subban) and has little to show for it. The Devils had the second-fewest points in the NHL entering Saturday.
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Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.